Many of you have friends who just finished their arduous task of bar exam prep a few months ago, and are now done with the bar and off on new adventures. Soon, it will be your turn. You've dreaded that fact for a while now. Nonetheless, it had been easy watching those law students in grades above you give up week after week of socializing, sleeping and having fun in order to focus on their bar exam prep. You shrugged it off saying you've got time, and that won’t be you, at least not for a while. And now you open your eyes and see that 3L year is in progress. Meaning, law school will soon be over and you, too, like those before you, will have to face the bar exam.
As you slowly wrap your head around this, we want to remind you that BarMax has everything you need to succeed! With the addition of new essay questions, as well as the recently released MBE Complete Practice Exam (the first that has been released with Civil Procedure questions!), plus our additional four Online Practice Exams, BarMax has got you covered.
Let's have a quick review of the structure of the bar, examining first the MBE and the various types of bar exam questions that can be found on it. The MBE has 200 multiple-choice questions, 175 of which are scored. Since Civil Procedure was added to the MBE in 2015, the MBE has been divided into 25 questions for each of: Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Real Property and Torts.
UBE students will also face the MEE and MPT questions. These include six 30-minute Multistate Essay Examination questions which can cover any of the above MBE subjects and also Secured Transactions, Agency and Partnerships, Corporations, Trusts, Wills, Family Law or Conflict of Laws. Additionally, there are 2 90-minute Multistate Performance Tests, each of which has stand-alone role-playing legal question to solve.
The California exam is similar, except that instead of 6 short MEE essays and two Performance Tests, you will see 5 California-drafted essays of one hour each, and one CA Performance Test of 90 minutes.
The bar exam is an evolving and ever-changing entity that will mold itself to the changing face of the law. It's inevitable that things will be added and tweaked as the years go by. In fact, there are some really big changes planned for 2026 to 2028, as the NCBE switches to the Next Gen Bar Exam structure, in which the emphasis will be on practice-oriented questions that test multiple subjects in each fact pattern. Several jurisdictions have already announced that they plan to switch to the NextGen exam in 2026 or 2027; other states are sure to join. Regardless of which exam you are planning to take, or any potential changes to come, BarMax will help you to prepare in the most efficient and effective way possible! In the meantime, as you prepare for your 2024 exam: you’ve got this!
Happy Studying!
